Advanced Composites
Laminate Design

A laminate is a stack of plies or laminas of composites. The plies can be laid at a different orientation and can be of different materials. Refer again to the lamina in figure 1. Although the stiffness and strength in the axial direction is quite good, these properties are substantially reduced in the transverse direction. Therefore a structure constructed entirely from a single lamina although providing excellent mechanical properties in the axial direction, might not be appropriate for any application that had off-axis loadings.

Figure 6 below show a laminate made of three plies. The fiber orientation in each ply is different. Varying the orientation of the plies and changing the thickness and consequently the proportion of fiber orientation of the laminate can attain an infinite variety of laminate properties. The laminate can be optimized for stiffness in any direction, thermal stability, shear stiffness, and a variety of other mechanical properties.

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